redl-gamepanel/GUIDE.en.md

Русский · English

Complete guide

From an empty server to a hosting service that can take clients.

Maintained and developed with REDL.IO — AI-powered hosting.

Contents:

1. How it all fits together
2. Installing the panel
3. Installing a game node
4. Connecting the node to the panel
5. Game server files
6. Configuring the panel
7. Interface language
8. Captcha
9. HTTPS and domain
10. Maintenance
11. Troubleshooting

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1. How it all fits together

Two roles, usually on separate machines:

The panel — the website, the database, client areas, tickets, payments. It does not need Docker and runs happily on a cheap VPS.

A game node (location) — where the game servers themselves run. The panel connects to it over SSH and creates a separate Docker container for every ordered server:

docker create --tty --rm --name=gs<ID> --network=host \
  --cpus="<cores>" --memory=<RAM>M \
  --volume="/home/gs<ID>/:/home/container/" \
  --workdir=/home/container debian:stretch

Hence two hard requirements for a node: working Docker and a local image tagged debian:stretch (the name is hard-coded in the panel). Server files live on the node in /home/gs<ID> and appear inside the container as /home/container.

You can have several nodes — they are added to the panel as separate locations, and the client picks one when ordering.

Important about nodes. Docker does not start inside container-based VPSes (LXC, OpenVZ and similar) because the kernel forbids nested namespaces. A node needs a dedicated server or KVM. The installer checks this first and warns you.

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2. Installing the panel

Ubuntu 24.04 / 22.04 or Debian 12 / 13. Minimum: 1 core, 1 GB RAM, 10 GB disk.

apt-get update && apt-get install -y git
git clone https://github.com/RedlHosting/redl-gamepanel.git
cd redl-gamepanel
sudo bash install-panel.sh

The script asks three things:

• the panel's domain or IP — it goes into the configuration as the base address, and all links and e-mails are built from it;
• the administrator e-mail — also the login;
• the administrator password — at least 6 characters.

Everything after that is automatic: packages, a database with a random password, the schema (27 tables), configuration, permissions, PHP, nginx, the scheduler, an autostart watchdog, an administrator with full access, and a final check that the login page opens.

It takes 2–5 minutes. The panel address and login are printed at the end.

A non-standard port (if 80 is taken, or the panel sits behind a reverse proxy):

sudo PORT=8095 bash install-panel.sh

Where things end up:

What	Path
Panel code	/var/www/hostinpl
Configuration	/var/www/hostinpl/application/config.php
Database password and scheduler token	/root/.redl-panel-credentials
nginx configuration	/etc/nginx/sites-available/hostinpl
Scheduler	/etc/cron.d/hostinpl
Autostart watchdog	/usr/local/bin/hostinpl-guard
Database	MariaDB, database hostin

phpMyAdmin (optional; the panel links to it from the admin area):

sudo apt-get install -y phpmyadmin        # do NOT let it configure a web server, decline
sudo ln -sfn /usr/share/phpmyadmin /var/www/hostinpl/phpmyadmin

Log in with the database user from /root/.redl-panel-credentials. Remember that phpMyAdmin will be reachable by anyone who knows the address: either restrict it by IP in nginx, or do not install it.

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3. Installing a game node

You need a dedicated server or KVM (not LXC/OpenVZ). Minimum: 2 cores, 2 GB RAM, 100 GB disk, counting 1–2 GB per game server.

apt-get update && apt-get install -y git
git clone https://github.com/RedlHosting/redl-gamepanel.git
cd redl-gamepanel
sudo bash install-node.sh

The script asks:

• this node's IP — how the panel will reach it;
• whether to allow root SSH login with a password — the panel can only connect with a login and password, and its commands require root. Answer yes and the script generates a strong root password and shows it at the end.

What it does: checks that the machine is suitable, installs Docker from the official repository, builds the debian:stretch image (Debian 12 inside, plus 32-bit libraries, Java, Node.js and screen), creates /home/cp/gameservers/files and the gameservers group, installs MariaDB for game server databases, SteamCMD and ProFTPD, configures sshd, and installs a Docker watchdog.

The first run takes 5–15 minutes, mostly building the image.

Close the ports immediately afterwards. The script prints ready-made commands; substitute the panel's address:

ufw allow from PANEL_IP to any port 22 proto tcp
ufw allow from PANEL_IP to any port 3306 proto tcp
ufw deny 3306
# leave the game ports open: 7777 (SA-MP), 22005 (RAGE:MP), 25565 (Minecraft) and so on

If you also connect to the node over SSH yourself, allow your own IP first or you will lock yourself out:

ufw allow from YOUR_IP to any port 22 proto tcp

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4. Connecting the node to the panel

1. Sign in to the panel as an administrator
2. Go to Admin → Locations → Add location
3. Fill in:

Field	What to enter
Name	Anything meaningful: "Frankfurt", "Helsinki"
IP	The node's IP
User	root
Password	The root password printed by install-node.sh
Games	Tick the games available on this node

4. Save and open Admin → Locations — if the panel connected, the location shows its real cores, RAM and disk (refreshed hourly by the scheduler).

If it does not connect, check from the panel machine:

ssh root@NODE_IP                      # does the password work?
php -m | grep ssh2                    # is the php-ssh2 extension installed?

If the extension is missing: apt-get install -y php-ssh2, then restart PHP-FPM.

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5. Game server files

They are not included. The original installer downloaded them from third-party sites over plain HTTP with no signature checking, so we removed that (details in SECURITY.en.md).

Lay the files out on the node like this:

/home/cp/gameservers/files/<game_code>/

Game codes are listed under Admin → Games (for example samp, crmp, mta, minecraft, cs, css, ragemp). When a server is created, the panel copies the contents of that directory into /home/gs<ID>/.

Only take builds from primary sources: SA-MP from sa-mp.com, MTA from mtasa.com, Minecraft (Paper) from papermc.io, RAGE:MP from rage.mp, Steam games via SteamCMD (already installed in /root/steamcmd).

Then test the whole chain: order a server as a test client and confirm that it is created and starts.

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6. Configuring the panel

Admin → Settings, four tabs:

• General settings — name, description, contacts, logo
• Payment gateways — Unitpay, Enot, AnyPay, LiteKassa, RoboKassa, FreeKassa, YooKassa, QIWI. You need your own merchant accounts. We never tested a gateway with a real payment — test each one with your own money before taking clients.
• Other settings — trial period, e-mail confirmation, captcha, maintenance mode, VK login
• Information and bonuses — top-up bonuses, referral percentages

Plans and games live under Admin → Games (versions, RAM and core limits, prices).

When you save settings the panel rewrites config.php entirely. It matches configuration lines by substring, so do not create parameters whose names are contained in other names. After editing the file by hand, restart PHP-FPM fully (restart, not reload) — otherwise a cached copy is served.

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7. Interface language

The panel speaks Russian and English. The language is chosen in this order:

1. ?lang=en or ?lang=ru in the URL — an explicit choice, remembered in a cookie for a year
2. the lang cookie — the previous choice
3. the browser's Accept-Language header — automatic detection
4. the lang value in application/config.php (default ru)

Automatic detection deliberately keeps Russian for Russian-speaking locales (ru, uk, be, kk and others) and switches to English for everything else, so a visitor from Germany or Brazil gets the English interface without touching anything.

The switcher sits in the top bar of the client area and the admin area (the RU / EN buttons next to the balance) and in the footer of the login page.

How it is built. The panel was written with Russian text directly in the templates — about 1500 strings across 200 files. Instead of rewriting all of them, translation happens on the finished response: index.php wraps the output in ob_start(), and before the page is sent to the browser the strings are replaced using a dictionary (engine/main/lang.php). This covers the whole panel at once, including the admin area and e-mails, and anything missing from the dictionary simply stays Russian — nothing can vanish from the screen.

Replacement only happens on word boundaries, so a short dictionary key cannot corrupt a longer word.

Adding your own language, for example German:

cp panel/application/lang/en.php panel/application/lang/de.php
# translate the values in de.php, then add 'de' to Lang::AVAILABLE
# in panel/engine/main/lang.php

Dictionary coverage is verified by crawling the pages: all 20 sections we walk through render with no Russian left over. If you spot an untranslated phrase, add it to application/lang/en.php — the key is the Russian text exactly as it appears.

Translation only runs when the language is not Russian; in Russian mode the dictionary is not even loaded, so there is no overhead.

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8. Captcha

By default it is off — registration and login work without it, and the field is simply absent.

To enable it:

1. Get reCAPTCHA v2 "I'm not a robot" keys at google.com/recaptcha/admin and specify the panel's domain
2. Go to Admin → Settings → Other settings → "Bot protection (reCAPTCHA v2)"
3. Paste the Site key and the Secret key
4. Switch to "Enabled" and save

The order matters. Enable the captcha without keys and the form will show "ERROR for site owner: Invalid site key", locking everyone out. If that happens, open /var/www/hostinpl/application/config.php, set 'captcha_enable' => '0' and restart PHP-FPM:

sudo sed -i "s/'captcha_enable' => '1'/'captcha_enable' => '0'/" /var/www/hostinpl/application/config.php
sudo service php8.4-fpm restart     # use your PHP version

The captcha covers login, registration, password recovery and ticket creation — all four forms at once.

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9. HTTPS and domain

The panel is installed over HTTP. For a certificate:

sudo apt-get install -y certbot python3-certbot-nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d panel.example.com

After the certificate is issued, update the address in the configuration, otherwise links in e-mails and redirects will stay on http://:

sudo sed -i "s|'url' => 'http://|'url' => 'https://|" /var/www/hostinpl/application/config.php
sudo service php8.4-fpm restart

If the panel sits behind a reverse proxy (Caddy, nginx, Cloudflare), its nginx configuration already contains absolute_redirect off; port_in_redirect off; — without them redirects point at the internal port and links such as /phpmyadmin do not open from outside.

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10. Maintenance

Backups. Keep the database and the configuration:

mysqldump hostin > /root/hostin-$(date +%F).sql
cp /var/www/hostinpl/application/config.php /root/config-$(date +%F).php

Game server files live on the node in /home/gs<ID> — back those up on the node.

Logs:

What to look at	Where
PHP and nginx errors	/var/log/nginx/error.log
Scheduler hits	grep 'main/cron' /var/log/nginx/access.log
Login journal	the authlog table
Node image build	/tmp/redl-docker-build.log

Health check: Admin → System check — PHP extensions, versions, scheduler links. Every item should be green.

Updating the code from the repository:

cd redl-gamepanel && git pull
sudo cp -a panel/application panel/engine /var/www/hostinpl/     # config.php is not overwritten
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/hostinpl
sudo service php8.4-fpm restart

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11. Troubleshooting

"Error: could not load the controller …" — the panel found no controller for that address. Usually it is a link to something that does not exist, for example /phpmyadmin when phpMyAdmin is not installed (see section 2). If the section really should exist, check that the files are in place and owned by www-data, then restart PHP-FPM fully: opcache may have cached a file that was caught mid-write.

The login page is blank or has no form — look at /var/log/nginx/error.log. A common cause is short_open_tag = Off. The panel uses short <? ?> tags; the installer turns the option on, but you have to restore it if you reinstall PHP.

Cannot log in, the form shows "Invalid site key" — the captcha is on without keys, see section 8.

The scheduler is not running (statistics not updating, expired servers not suspended):

grep -c 'main/cron' /var/log/nginx/access.log     # should grow
pgrep -a cron                                     # is the daemon running?
cat /etc/cron.d/hostinpl                          # every job must be on ONE line

If a job is split across two lines, the token got into the file with a newline — rewrite the file, taking the token from /root/.redl-panel-credentials.

A server is not created on the node — check on the node:

docker info                                  # is the daemon up?
docker image inspect debian:stretch          # is the image there?
docker run --rm debian:stretch echo ok       # does a container start?
ls /home/cp/gameservers/files/               # are the game files in place?

The server is created but dies immediately — look at the container log on the node: docker logs gs<ID>. Most often the 32-bit libraries are missing (rebuild the image from our docker/Dockerfile) or the game build is damaged.

Everything worked until a reboot — on machines without systemd, the watchdogs on cron bring things back. Check pgrep -a cron and run /usr/local/bin/hostinpl-guard by hand (gamenode-guard on a node).

A phrase in the interface is still Russian in English mode — add it to panel/application/lang/en.php; the key is the Russian text exactly as it appears on the page.

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Maintained and developed with REDL.IO — AI-powered hosting.